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The Stranger Names Tricia Romano as Editor-in-Chief

june 1, 2016 05:00 pm

The Stranger, Seattle’s innovative news, arts, and culture publication, today announced that Tricia Romano has been named the new editor in chief.

Romano, an award-winning journalist, joins The Stranger from the Seattle Times, where she was most recently the lifestyle features reporter. She will begin her new role on June 29, reporting to publisher Tim Keck and editorial director Dan Savage. As editor in chief, Romano will be responsible for the editorial oversight of The Stranger.

“Working for The Stranger is a dream job and will be a homecoming for me, as the paper gave me my first paid story assignment when I was just starting out,” said Romano. “I look forward to furthering The Stranger’s vaunted tradition of calling it like it is and building on the powerful prose and distinctive voice that has made it a Pulitzer Prize–winning publication.”

Prior to her stint at the Times, Romano was a columnist, staff writer, and editor at the Village Voice, where she specialized in covering New York City nightlife and the city’s vibrant underground cultures. She won the Newswomen's Club of New York Front Page Award for best feature for her story “The Sober Bunch,” about sobriety in the nightlife industry. She has been a regular contributor to the Daily Beast and the New York Times, and her work has also been published in the Los Angeles Times, Rolling Stone, Spin, Marie Claire, New York, Radar magazine, Grantland, Dame, New York Post, Slate, and Salon.

“I’ve been a fan of Tricia’s writing for years,” said Keck. “No one has a better take on the issues facing this city than she does, and I’m excited about where she wants to take the paper.”

“Tricia is tough, she’s smart, and she gets this city,” said Savage. “I’ve admired Tricia for years, and I’m really glad that the stars have finally aligned and we were able to partner with her.”

“I can’t think of a better person for this job,” said Christopher Frizzelle, editor in chief of The Stranger from 2007 to 2016, who recently became the paper’s magazine editor. “She’s creative, she’s fast, she’s a great reporter, she knows everyone, she has years of experience at a variety of different publications, and she has a lot of ideas about how to keep The Stranger relevant in a changing media landscape.”

Romano holds two bachelor’s degrees, in communications and English, from the University of Washington. A native of Las Vegas, she has lived in New York and Los Angeles, and she returned to Seattle five years ago.

Founded in 1991, The Stranger is known for inventive and independent journalism and is widely considered the best publication of its kind. The Stranger won the highest journalistic award in 2012: the Pulitzer Prize for feature writing. The Stranger is owned by Index Newspapers LLC, which also publishes the Portland Mercury. Index also owns the ticketing company Bold Type Tickets. In addition to a weekly newspaper, a website, a blog, and podcasts, The Stranger also publishes Seattle Art and Performance, a glossy quarterly; The Sauce, a biannual food magazine; and Seattle Green Guide, a guide to the recreational marijuana industry in Seattle.